Lunch Time!

After a morning of shopping, we headed to Crackers for some delicious soups and sandwiches.  Cal was with us and he wasn't happy, but eating a lemon for the first time was more sweet than sour for this cutie!  It's soo fun to be a aunt!

Sunsplash!

This morning the aunts and Mom Komenda are heading to Last Chance in Phoenix for some shopping while Kyle and our kids have fun at Sunsplash.  We tried to get some cousins to join, but in the end it was just Kyle and the kids.  Mini golf and arcade games are fun no matter who is or isn't there, though!

Lunch with the Ladies

When Kyle and I finally decided we were going to make the trip to Mesa after Christmas, I started making plans of my own.  Lunch with the sisters and Mom Komenda was first on the agenda!  We struggled to find a place who could host our big group on a Friday morning.  In the end we decided to grab some brunch at Snooze in downtown Gilbert.  It was a minute away from our rental, so I got there first and put our name on the list.  An hour later we were seated and enjoying some close quartered visiting and some delicious food!

Another One Bites the Dust

Ben has been battling his front tooth for over a week and is pretty sensitive about brushing it and eating with it, unfortunately he is also pretty sensitive about anyone helping pull it out!  As a result it has been dangling and finally made it's way out this morning while Kyle was at the temple with Ava.  Our kids lose their teeth while we are travelling all the time-its makes it interesting for the Tooth Fairy for sure!

Temple Trip

These cute 12 and 13 year old cousins got to take a trip to the Mesa Temple this morning and perform ordinances with Kyle and Michael.  It was Grace and Rachel's first trip!  The Mesa Temple will be closing for 2 years of renovations in May, so we were glad everything worked out (including finding Kyle's temple recommend in his suit coat) and everyone was able to enjoy a morning together in the Temple.

New Cousin

The Komenda family has expanded this year adding three new babies!!  We haven't met any of them, so we were so excited today as we got to hang out with Cal, Matt and Kenzi's first child, for the afternoon!  Hoping to meet Claire, Erica and Holly's third as well as hold Beckett, Melanie and Tate's second.  We saw Beckett asleep in his car seat last night when we met up at Portillos in Tempe for dinner on our way into town!

Star Wars

We've all been excited about the release of this movie and once Kyle and I previewed before we left UT, we decided it would be our "first order" of business after arriving in AZ!!

We hoped to have some family join us, but in the end it was just us and the kids!  It was such a good movie, though and watching it from reclining seats in 3-D at 10AM was pretty dang awesome!

Dinner & Dessert

Our German inspired Prime Rib dinner with mushrooms and dumplings was seriously out of this world delicious and perfectly prepared.

A Peppermint Pie for dessert was even better though!!  This decadence was so amazingly sweet and minty-we were all wishing we had more in our tummies!

Highlights!

We gave the kids a trip to Universal Studios for Christmas and wrapped in these giant Milka bars!!

Video games are definitely part of the kids' lives and the new game Ben got was a perfect addition to our collection!

These nerf guns were pretty great too!  Norah got a sewing machine and Ava got a 3-D Pen-they've yet to figure those out though!

Love Being Together!

My favorite part about Christmas is all the time we get to spend just hanging out as a family.  Nowhere to go, no schedule to keep-it is so awesome!!

New Teeth for Christmas!

At Norah's orthodontist appointment last week, we decided that she would need to wear her newly tightened retainer 24 hours a day until Christmas day and then she could start wearing her retainer only at night!!  This girl loved being able to take her retainer out this morning and not have to touch it again until bedtime!  Look at the change the last 6 weeks have made, that top tooth is definitely in front of the bottom tooth!

Santa Delivered!

This morning we were able to wake up around 6:30 and allow the kids to run through the wrapping paper before coming to the family room.

The kids all seemed pretty thrilled with their loot!  Ava got a Winne the Pooh crochet kit, Ben got a new racing video game, Jack got some new roller coasters to build and Norah got a life-sized panda bear!

Christmas Eve

Going to church last year on Christmas Day and this year on Christmas Eve really helped bring the true spirit of the day back.  It's easy to get caught up in buying gifts for everyone and baking a mile high pile of goodies, but being reminded today of our Savior and what His birth meant for all mankind was the sweetest part of our day!

The cheese fondue and raclette dinner wasn't bad either!!!

Christmas Eve Eve Ski

Last year we started the tradition of skiing on Christmas Eve at Nordic Valley.  We had a blast last year on the little mountain and decided to do it again this year.  Christmas Eve is on a Sunday this year, so we were fortunate enough to be able to ski today in all the fresh powder!  It was so fun and a great way to kick off our 2018 ski season and get everyone used to skis again on the little mountain.

Snow Fun

The boys loved being out on the driveway while Kyle was blowing snow all over.  They jumped into the snow stream a few times and got obliterated!

We only cleared part of the driveway and left the area next to the house used as a parking spot untouched.  The boys used that snow to make a massive snowball that ended up the size of Ben!

Breaking in the Blower

We ordered a snow blower a few weeks ago and finally put it together this week-just in time!  The amount of snow we got would have been impossible to move this morning, we would have needed to be shoveling though the night to keep up with it!

It took a while to figure it out, but eventually Kyle got it figured out and cleared the driveway in about an hour and a half!  Considering how massive it is, that time wasn't bad for his first go of it!

Snow Day!!

It started snowing last night shortly after we got home from Ogden and still hasn't stopped!  We had the kids out enjoying the powder while trying to move some of it off the deck!

In Between

Our rock gym pass was for all day, so to give our arms a break, we made a trip to the movies to see Ferdinand and lunch at Costa Vida.  Everything was in walking distance-so it made for a fun day together that was reminiscent of our time in Europe!

Rock Gym

Today was our first day of Christmas break and there's no snow yet so we decided to play around in downtown Ogden.  Our first stop was the rock gym.

Ava and Norah made it to the top of the highest wall and were so excited to be able to tackle this mountain!  I was baleigh-ing everyone so I didn't actually get to do any climbing myself-oh well!

Temple Lights

After the half day of school today we rushed some dinner over to a lady in need and then headed to SLC to deliver the bears we had sewed for the kids at Primary Children's Hospital.  We followed that up with our traditional dinner at Sigfreid's Deli and made a trip to the temple lights!  It was a festive day and we all survived the cold with snow pants and ski jackets!

Buddies

Our kids all have friends in our ward that they will miss when we move to the house in North Fork, but Norah is lucky enough to be in the same class at school with her best friend from church!  These two could hang out everyday and still get along!  So glad Norah has made such a good friend!

Great Teachers!

Norah has the sweetest teacher this year-Mrs. Combe.  Norah just adores her and I was in awe today as she played the piano for all the Christmas songs!  She's also the Stake Primary President and seems to be a great teacher for Norah!

Jack could not have gotten a cooler teacher!  Mrs. Layton has an intense Harry Potter themed classroom and doesn't  miss a chance to up her cool factor through parties and dress up opportunities.  Today she rocked a pink bunny costume from A Christmas Story!  Jack didn't appreciate it, but Kyle and I were way impressed!  She also has a new baby and is a great teacher!

Ben was fortunate enough to get Mrs. Anderson this year for 1st grade!  She is the best teacher-so kind and patient, but has amazing classroom management skills and thinks the world of our Ben.  What a lucky boy!

Christmas Sing-Along

Not sure what could be cuter than your kids wearing Santa hats and pj's and singing Christmas songs with their classes at school while all the parents looked on!

I love that the elementary school does this-we missed Ava this year though!

Cookie Party

This morning we decided we wanted to invite some friends over for the half day in hopes that someday some friends would reciprocate and we might actually get an invite!  It turns out that the friends we tried to invite didn't have their car in the afternoon-so they invited us over!!  It was so funny to tell the kids what happened and then to head over and make cookies at our friends' house-what a great turn of events!

Heads Up!

I secretly made each of the kids their own snowman head to enjoy for family night tonight-that face pretty much says it all!

Teacher Gifts

This year we created a white chocolate dipped apple snowman topped with a white chocolate dipped marshmallow and decorated with m n m's and licorice for the kids' teachers.  It turned out exactly as we had hoped it would-adorable!!  The kids were thrilled to deliver them!

Visit With Santa

I love visiting Santa with these kids!  It's always memorable and this year was no different.

We loved that the Eden square folks put up this quaint Santa's village this year.  It was outside in the crisp winter air in a gazebo filled with Christmas decorations.

We visited each of the stores and bought gifts for neighbors before heading over to visit with the Big Guy.

Most years everyone is shy, this year a few were, but all the kids managed to talk for a minute and then each received a candy cane!  It was a great start to the Christmas season!

Caught on Camera

We caught this cutie on camera this morning writing a story while looking adorable!  Love this!

Yum!

Thanksgiving was spent with our little brood in another rental.  Not the best way to spend a holiday, but it was nice being off school and having no responsibilities except to eat food!!  Jack wasn't thrilled today, but we managed to keep in the picture regardless!

Turkey Trot

This morning was pretty surreal.  I took all the kids to the turkey trot while Kyle went to the turkey bowl in Liberty.  Norah and Ben both had colds (thanks to Norah's retainer and bad hand cleansing habits), so they scootered the 1.5 miles while Ava and I jogged it.

The weather last year included fresh snow on the ground, this year it was warm and foggy!  We were fine both times, but thought this pictured of the kids scootering ahead in the fog was pretty amazing!